Principal Design System Architect

Brightplan

Mar 2016

Mar 2018

PROJECT OVERVIEW

PROBLEM STATEMENT

Brightplan is a financial wellness and planning tool, which was developing and designing a proof of concept mvp. It's unique value proposition was to inspire investors to set emotional goals, enable funding through financial instruments, and monitor their progress.

PROJECT OPPORTUNITIES

Deploy browser based and native app to enable investment funding and management.

Create a style guide supporting mvp and ensure future scalability and consistency.

Grow assets under management to $250mm and subsequently at 20% annually.

THE CHALLENGES

Given the fluid nature of high level business goals, the team had to work quickly to pivot to essential features first.

GOALS AT A GLANCE

Build new account base
Create strategic relationships
Increase average ROI
Improve design execution

~30%
~15%
~25%
~30%

TEAM

Head of Product

Developer

Larry Robinson

Huey Vo

PROJECT TOOLS + SKILLS

Sketch

Profit Strategy

Journey Maps

Qualitative Research

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PROJECT RESEARCH

I Led Product team first through qualitative discovery including personae, journey maps, and early product brainstorming sessions.

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Working with associated business partners, we conducted exhaustive product feature discovery based on a thorough evaluation of investor sentiments, feelings, desired goals and current investing pain points.

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After qualitative white-boarding sessions, I created an experience map tailored to new account conversions and building long term customer relationships.

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RESEARCH GOALS

Basic goal was to start visualizing the final result and share all progress with engineering. This ensured all the teams cohered around the same ideas.

Preliminary research involved new customer onboarding, but we were constantly evaluating future mobile use, and eventually creating a style guide.

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RESEARCH CHALLENGES

We were relying on personas instead of doing contextual interviews with potential customers. As a small startup, we were short-staffed and lacked a true dedicated research specialist.

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RESEARCH METHODS

We were relying on personas instead of doing contextual interviews with potential customers. As a small startup, we were short-staffed and lacked a true dedicated research specialist.

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RESEARCH OUTCOMES

After thorough white-boarding and discussion, we derived an experience map which helped align future design and engineering efforts.

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PROJECT PLANNING

Working with product owners, I created all preliminary wireframes according to the journey map.

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Continued care was taken to ensure ongoing iterations were aligned with high level business goals, OKRs and KPIs.

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All designs were tailored from the start to derive the required set of scalable components from which the final products would be built.

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PLANNING GOALS

Basic goal was to start visualizing the final result and share all progress with engineering. This ensured all the teams cohered around the same ideas.

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A Secondary goal was to make sure we could complete a necessary style guide, which was a key take-away from the project.

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PLANNING CHALLENGES

As this was a startup, there was often misalignment between senior stakeholders on a solid product vision, which resulted in confusion and strategic planning of UX assets.

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PLANNING METHODS

Copious white-boarding and wire-frame reviews. Constant design iterations and reviews. Creating a feedback loop which was running full speed every day. Research and discovery feedback was regularly fed back into iterations as we evolved the vision of the product.

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PLANNING OUTCOMES

A solid understanding of scope and anticipated UX and engineering levels of effort.

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We also had more clarity on what would be required for the style guide.

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DESIGN EXECUTION

I worked closely with product team to approve preliminary color palettes and fonts.

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As this was a data-rich application, multiple visualization examples were investigated.

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I executed all wireframes and design specifications as goals and business use cases evolved, with attention to how a style guide would be used.

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I carefully crafted multiple designs geared to inspire emotional goal setting, in line with the company's value proposition.

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EXECUTION GOALS

Basic goal was to start visualizing the final result and share all progress with engineering. This ensured all the teams cohered around the same ideas.

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EXECUTION CHALLENGES

Again, time. There was so much work to be done, and goalposts kept shifting, ensuring team alignment was often difficult and stressful. Also, I was the sole UX resource, so that put a constraint on the delivery cadence.

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EXECUTION METHODS

I worked with the product team to align on future features during sprint planning, and iterated on solutions which I reviewed regularly with stakeholders.

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EXECUTION OUTCOMES

Despite issues along the way, I was successful delivering successful proof of concepts for both mobile and desktop applications, and a robust style guide for future use.